Recently, a customer made interesting comments about a water heater's role as emergency water storage. I asked his permission to use them because it was an important point I hadn't considered before. Here they are. I'll comment on them myself afterward.

-- Randy Schuyler
Water Heater Rescue

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I realized today there is a LARGE market you aren't reaching yet . . . There are many groups in the U.S. into emergency preparedness. These programs are often run in local communities by churches, local governments, other volunteer organizations.

For example, I live in Salt Lake City, UT. A large earthquake is expected here some day, it goes in cycles and we are due for it now. The valley is an ancient lake bed (Great Salt Lake is the puddle left from the ancient Lake Bonneville). A strong enough earthquake will cause liquification of the sand the city sits on and do significant damage.

I have been to community emergency preparedness meetings here. Most people assume they can use their water heater as a water supply in an emergency.

They don't realize how bad the plastic drain valves are that come with water heaters or that the water heater may be full of 6 inches of horrible sludge and filled with dangerous aluminum (if they have an aluminum anode).

Almost no one knows of this problem. They see a water heater and think they have that much water storage for an emergency. They don't realize they may not be able to get most of the water out. They could solve this problem by buying your flush kit and installing it.

Now we're back to me again. Brian is right about a bunch of things. The plastic drain valves that come with water heaters, such as the two that are shown at left, rarely work well and often are easily clogged by sediment buildup. You can see a typical pile of sediment at the top of the page. It came out of a tank in a hard-water area. If a plastic drain valve gets clogged and you need the water, there is no way to get it short of tilting the tank over, and a full one will weigh several hundred pounds.

It is also true that various kinds of gunk build up on the tank bottom. The water heater is supposed to be full of drinkable water, and for the most part, it's safe. But if you ever flush one, you shouldn't be shocked to occasionally see rusty water, sediment that looks like gravel or sand, and if there is an aluminum anode, a lot of jelly.

Nobody would want to drink any of that without filtering it, and the jelly-like aluminum corrosion byproduct is the most pernicious. We have a little booklet written by a doctor after World War I. He did experimentation on how readily aluminum leaches into water and its effects on the human body. It's unhealthy stuff. I got rid of all my aluminum cookware and aluminum deodorant when I read it.

Waterheaterrescue.com is both business and public service. I never push anyone to buy something they don't need, but in this case, EVERYBODY should replace their water heater drain valve with a ball valve drain assembly like the one above -- plastic-lined steel nipple, valve, hose adapter, cap -- at bare minimum. It's not that hard to do, especially when the heater is new. There are detailed instructions on my Know-How page, but if you don't want to tackle it yourself, a plumber can easily do it.

A full sediment flush kit with curved dip tube and ball-valve assembly is an even better idea. It's good for extending the life of the heater, which is what we're mainly about, and good for keeping the amount of undrinkable gunk building up on the bottom of the tank to a bare minimum, to say nothing of keeping it from clogging the drain valve. If your heater is going to be an emergency water supply, you're going to need to be able to access it!

An advantage of ball valves is that they have a straight path that can easily be cleared with a screwdriver if something does clog them up. That's impossible with those sad little plastic drain valves. The ball valve shown here, which is the kind I sell, just happens to have another slight advantage to it. Due to a recent change in California law, it's lead free. Click on the link to learn more about that.

Another thing that Brian didn't mention was the need for earthquake strapping in seismically active areas. You can buy kits for that, but they should be bolted into wall studs, not plasterboard. You don't want your water heater to break loose and blow up or start a fire.

Everybody should also have matches, candles, 30 days worth of canned food, and perhaps a 12-gauge shotgun and a box of shells. Our society is now so centralized that many people would go hungry, at the least, if the local supermarket could no longer get deliveries. And you could probably expect looting. Remember New Orleans!

-- Randy Schuyler

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